The Difference
by VixenVampirechick
Summary: Selene teaches Michael how to survive all the while learning from Michael how to live...
1. A Shelter

Disclaimer: Underworld and it's characters are not mine, just being used here for my own entertainment, don't sue I'm so poor it's not even worth it.

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**Chapter One**

**A SHELTER**

Selene."

He spoke her name so delicately almost coaxing, trying to pull her from the deep, cold recesses of her mind. He uttered her name with that voice of his she would never confess made her shudder, as it was the perfect combination of strength and sensitivity. Always he expressed such gentle concern that came so easily to him, with just a hint of need for explanation and then there was something else in his voice too...

An emotion so alien, it evoked a pleasant sensation in her insides. A warm tingly sensation that almost tickled, faint but there.

Despite her back to him, Michael had noticed the softening of her resolve, as her posture became that of a delicate young woman, not the feral and firm body a warrior.

"Selene!"

A child's voice of two hundred years past, that voice contained the same kind of emotion as Michael's struck her…

The memory jolted her--

She turned with a hard glare that was almost cold. "We need to keep moving."

Michael gave a small nod of understanding and said nothing more.

Her combat boots and the softer footfalls of her hybrid companion on the crumbling stone echoed through the ruins that was only minutes before a great battle field but now served as a tomb to Vampires and Lycans alike this night.

The stillness of the night was only a false assurance of safety. She knew all too well her kind, especially those of her kind who were Death Dealers; despite heavy losses, they would regroup and attack once more. This time she would be the target.

She and Michael.

Selene reloaded her last weapon, a magnum, scanning the darkened corridors of the ruined den.

Nights of this kind were similar to her. Sometimes on long dangerous nights of hunting lycans she would find herself left with only one gun leading to safety another Death Dealer without, or even outnumbered alone. Just like this night, she would scan deceptively dark corridors for sneak attacks with her highly sensitive hearing. Nights like this night she would cut her losses and run. Nights like this she would coldly kill dozens of lycans a night. Hundreds of times before like this only…

All of it was a lie.

They reached the upper level into the night that was waning, the sky a pale blue. It would be day in less than four hours. Not much time to hide.

Without weapons and a plan, hiding was all she and Michael could do for the present moment.

Upon reaching the car, she took a final scan of the empty street, her weapon raised. Whipping the keys from the waistband of her uniform, she started the car. In an instant, the tires screamed before speeding away.

She had been too focused on her own thoughts to really notice Michael. She could not help it now that they were so close in proximity, now that the rain did not cloud his scent, that scent of both vampire and lycan in his blood.

She took a moment to glance in his direction.

He sat with his glance downward, in quiet thought. His dirty blonde hair was in matted locks and his chest was bare. He shivered like the dog he at least partially was, suppressing the urge to give a dog-like shake that she had observed lycans commonly did when coming out of the rain.

He still said nothing.

Michael felt her stare and looked back at her face usually void of expression, this time there was a tinge of something new he perceived as…concern.

Confirming his theory the raven-haired Death Dealer reached over flicking on the heater.

Within minutes, he was no longer shivering.

Before he could give his thanks Selene spoke as she stared on into the rainy night.

"We've only three and a half hours before daylight then I must rest, there is a safe house I know of in the countryside. We will rest there until nightfall."

"And then?" Michael questioned gently.

For a moment she didn't answer, then her frown deepened. "I don't know."

It was uttered so quietly even with his Lycan and Vampire hearing he almost did not hear it.

You can't run forever, she reminded herself.

As was often the case when she gave in to looking at him, she was unable to stop sneaking in glances.

Michael was tenderly rubbing the left side of his neck wincing at the deepness of the wound she herself had inflicted.

Why shouldn't he? He had suffered twice the painful as well as pleasurable bite of an immortal; he was bound to be a bit sore. Most likely, he would also suffer some sickness as his body adjusted to the immortal viruses.

A wave rushed over her senses, a wave of bloodlust in catching the scent of his blood, blood sweeter than any she had ever tasted before. She had to clinch her teeth together to avoid drooling. Her knuckles gripping tightly to the steering wheel to avoid taking him once more.

She hoped he had not noticed her eyes, the unmistakable artic blue color she felt coming as her thoughts and sense of smell gave rise to her bloodlust.

Never had she felt bloodlust grip her the way Michael's presence had, nor passion and that completely new even nicer sensation she could not yet give a name. His flowing blood was not making the situation any better, trickling from the quickly healing wound.

A diet of cloned blood suddenly seemed so bland and tasteless. Selene was enslaved after one taste of Michael; she hated the feeling, the unfamiliarity of powerlessness and want. An animalistic, primal want.

It scared her.

Perhaps that was why the elders had made it a rule to not feed of those living, it made sense. Perhaps the sensation of bliss scared too, Amelia, Markus and Viktor.

Viktor.

Selene gave a sharp hiss with bared fangs at the thought of her sire.

"Are you all right?" Michael couldn't help but ask her.

Selene turned, her light blue irises returning with much willpower to normal. "I am fine Michael." Her tone was not as harsh as usual. "Relax."

Liar, she thought. You will never be fine, not after slaying Viktor.

The hypocrite. The lying, conniving bastard. User.

The moment her blade pierced him she felt neither remorse nor sorrow, it was not until she looked on at his corpse the grief of loss took her.

Her heart was heavy and aching, she hated the feeling of pain there in her heart, everywhere else was familiar and would heal. The intensity of this feeling in her heart hurt like nothing she had ever felt before…

Any feeling there at all was bewildering…

It was why she fought so strongly the tug at her heart Michael's presence had awakened, it felt so good it was painful.

Selene took a sharp left off the main road hours later and into the narrow lane of a darkened forest. She stole another glance at Michael; he faced the window staring out wistfully. He didn't seem at all fidgety considering the speed of which she was driving and his near-death experience with Selene only nights ago, he had obviously retired into his own thoughts.

When their eyes had first met that funny feeling had occurred, springing into her heart and jolting her.

He had stared back curiously and almost boldly with wet dirty blonde locks and earnest blue eyes before she broke the spell.

She would never admit to him how she had felt looking into those eyes the first time, she had wanted him, wanted to touch him, taste him when she saw him and it scared her.

Upon awakening on the damp shore after the car accident and finding he had saved her, her heart was filled with an ever stronger need for him. To protect the only kind and sincere creature she had ever met since her years as a vampire.

"Oh god you're going to try to turn him aren't you?" Erika had said.

"Of course not," she almost snapped.

She wondered all of the time if that reply had been true. She remembered the urge to walk to the door and lock it, as the vampire ritual was a private matter, take him into her embrace and drink of him, with such savored slowness she hoped it lasted hours. She has hoped he would cry out, whimper and go limp with heaving gasps as her fangs latched to him and her tongue caressed the spurting blood of his wound.

She wanted to take him as her mate after all he had proved worthy. Yes, to her heart he was definitely worthy.

Instead, she came close to blowing his head off with her pistol as he slept for making her feel such a way.

It was the weak side of her that had wanted, needed him so badly, a side she would be damned if anyone saw.

Her cold heart fought it for days until she had dared find a way to distract him in her effort to contain him in the safe house.

It had been a short chaste kiss but her blood had rushed with such fire she almost reached for more. More terrifying than before was the scent of lycan in his skin, the same as other lycans but very different as well, and the intoxication it evoked when once the scent of lycan had brought disgust to her.

"Wait a minute, you're infatuated with him aren't you?"

She had been lying to Kraven just as much as she had been lying to herself.

And lying still now, she reminded herself. Trying to lie to everyone.

It would be harder to lie to Michael now, seeing as though only hours ago upon his rescue she had yielded to his kiss without hesitation. (Underworld Extended Edition) A kiss that spoke of repressed need, his mouth and tongue expertly skillful, soft and gentle but on the edge of passionate, urging her to join and she readily complied.

They came to a stop hours later on the darkened road to Michael's surprise at a mansion. This one unlike Ordoghaz was smaller and more modest in appearance, no fancy gates and surrounded, oddly, by a field of wildflowers.

Selene gathered her keys and last weapon and exited the car with Michael close behind. He noticed Selene visibly flinch at the approaching day as she made her way up the dirt path.

Once inside the mansion the former Death Dealer did not stop her footsteps. She passed the grand staircase, to the door beneath it. She locked it behind them and they descended the concrete steps, once down she opened another door, this one on her immediate right. A small kitchen greeted them filled with modest appliances, dim light, and one fridge. Yanking open the fridge Selene began her hunt and Michael simply watched with curiosity.

He soon found himself sitting. He was tired now and weak, his head spinning so much he was sure he would soon pass out from it.

Selene heard his shallow gasps of air and watched his eyes fighting to stay open, to stay human. It was as she suspected. Michael would need to feed soon and much as he tried to fight the taste of raw flesh and blood, he would succumb and very soon.

She shuddered inside knowing if Michael's lycan instinct for food took over in its most primal state she might end up his dinner.

"Michael," she called sitting next to him.

His head raised to her voice, his eyes trying to recall their blue color, his muscles taut resisting the beast trying to break out to hunt.

She gripped him by his chin, careful to be gentle, to get a better look into his eyes. They were half-lidded but not fully dilated, it was a good sign.

"You must feed," she told him.

His gaze drifted listlessly from her to the packets of blood she had placed upon the tabletop. There were as least five of them, he could not be sure, his eyes were beginning to cloud in his insane hunger and fatigue.

"Selene, what's happening to me? Why am I feeling—

He didn't finish, she had punctured a blood bag with her teeth impatiently and the scent made him swoon and nearly pass out.

She began pouring the liquid into a glass she had sat next to him. "You've been a lycan for four days now." She tossed aside the first and began draining the second bag into the glass. "Lycans, the younger ones and those newly turned should feed every night. You have not feed that whole time and between losing your blood to bullet wounds and the blood draws from Lucian I'm amazed you are still conscious." A third and fourth was added. "Now that you are half-vampire…you are now feeling twice the effect of hunger."

Selene handed Michael the glass and he reluctantly swallowed despite its unpleasant coldness. He quickly swallowed down the liquid in his starved need not caring about the rivulets of blood trickling down his skin.

As he drank, Selene finished preparing his next one, which thanks to his hybrid hunger did not make him hesitate to drink on.

She watched his eyes blacken and close relishing the much-needed sustenance; she was fascinated to be honest hearing the little growls and purrs he emitted in his pleasure.

When he finished Selene gently pulled the glass from his hands and watched his eyes return to their normal blue color. His long straight locks of hair hung over his face and Selene much to her annoyance longed to stroke his hair and soothe him.

However, she folded her arms and watched him with her usual piercing gaze. "How do you feel?"

Michael simply nodded and quietly answered. "I'm all right. Thank you."

He felt a million times better and strong, but also shamed in his actions.

The hybrid began to wipe the blood from his face and neck, but his hand was intercepted by Selene's.

He looked up startled that she was touching him. She held a small wet cloth in her hand and began to gently wipe the blood from his face.

"You need not be ashamed of your hybrid nature Michael. It hungered and was satisfied in perhaps the most human way possible."

"Will it always fight me that way for—

"Control?" she finished. "We are always in battle against our animalistic nature and instincts, sometimes rationality wins, sometimes the animal does." She had moved to wipe the blood from his bleeding throat, dabbing gently. "When the animal does it is often unavoidable. You can be assured however these changes will mostly aid you when used with rationality, humanity only gets in the way. Be still."

Selene moved from her chair to her knees between his legs to better assess him for more injuries, traveling from arms to shoulder to his abdomen.

Her expression was steely, in complete contrast to her touch, which he was relaxing into as she searched his skin for bullets, feeling for embedded weapons with brief touches, massages of her fingertips to make sure.

To Michael it was a pleasurably sensation, she looked at though this were purely methodical and gave no sign of an emotional connection to her care of him.

"In battle or life in general?" he could not help but ask.

Selene scowled, suddenly releasing him. "You know what I mean."

He didn't know what she meant and neither did she really. Sometimes she really hated his questions.

She stood taking her coat off, giving Michael an eyeful of her graceful womanly shape, and a jolt of desire struck him like lightning.

"I'm going upstairs to rest, I will awaken at sunset, till then do not leave this house."

He watched her go resisting the urge to follow her. She would not tolerate his presence at the current moment he was sure about that.


	2. Adjusting

Disclaimer: Underworld and it's characters are not mine, yes I understand, I am making not profit off writing this. Though I wouldn't mine owning Scott Speedman, well while I'm dreaming I'd like a new guitar...

In all seriousness thank you everyone for your reviews, lets me know someone besides me is supporting my insanity.

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Chapter Two

**ADJUSTING**

As Selene slept Michael took the time to explore the mansion. He memorized the routes out of the house and to many bedrooms, common areas, kitchens, bathrooms and even the greenhouse. He even found a pair of clothes just a bit bigger than his size, a plain gray t-shirt and black sweats, showered and changed.

At the lower levels, he began to understand why Selene had chosen this place to hide out. There he found an enormous room full of enough guns to take out millions of enemies, a hand-to-hand combat arena, a wall lined with swords, daggers, bo staffs, and throwing stars.

Another room full of surveillance equipment, cameras to each of the rooms in the house, he could even see Selene sleeping peacefully upon the bed of a room on the third floor.

He found himself strangely edgy as though he had drunk twenty cups of coffee, his sharpened senses so sensitive. He felt so caged and longed to run outside…

Michael convinced himself it was boredom that made him creep into her room.

The windows of this room had been boarded and it was near pitch-black inside but with hybrid eyes he could easily make out Selene's body. She lay on her left side, her left arm serving at a pillow under her head; her right lay across her side. Her long legs tucked towards her upper body almost in a fetal position.

It shocked him, she looked so human. He had imagined she slept in well, a vampire's fashion, straight as a board on her back. Instead she looked a gentle, delicate woman, her raven straight strands of hair ruffled, her expression innocent in her deep sleep.

She was sleeping in her Death Dealer suit however it seemed she had found the time to remove her shoes beforehand. It further fascinated him that her tiny toes were perfectly manicured and the undersides of her feet possessed that long beautiful arch he loved on a woman.

Loved? Yes, love was the word for how he felt for Selene. He knew that now even in this short of time he knew it was true.

The scent of her caught his nose and seemed to call to him making him nearly drool for her.

Since becoming a lycan first then a vampire, Michael had noticed the scent humans and immortals radiated. He could easily tell now if a scent belonged to a lycan, vampire or human, male or female, from there, a signature scent of the individual. His favorite scent thus far had to be Selene's, the scent sweet, he could swear it was just like vanilla and honey.

He watched her for hours and at exactly seven o'clock in the evening, she began to stir. With muzzy green eyes, she noticed him.

Quick as lightning Selene whirled, with narrowed gaze, baring her lethal fangs and giving an angry feline-sounding hiss and growl.

A moment later, she recognized her hybrid.

She scowled; whether at him or her own actions Michael did not know. "Don't you have better things to do than startle sleeping vampires?" she grumbled.

"Sorry," Michael replied earnestly.

She stretched her limbs in a cat-like fashion before rising to a sitting position. He had always liked that about her, her feline grace.

He remembered the blonde vampire at Selene's home had reacted in the same way as Selene. Selene hadn't leapt to the ceiling the way the other had instead she had looked ready to fight to the death even if she had to claw his eyes out.

He couldn't help but ask: "You recognized me as a lycan first, it's why you reacted like that right?"

Selene ran her fingers through her hair. "I suppose so." She absently looked at him. Noticing his eyes, she stopped cold. His gaze had been roving over her, hungrily and for the briefest moment she could have sworn his eyes had flitted to a vampire's icy blue, a hybrid black then back to normal in milliseconds. "Are you feeling all right?"

Michael nodded surprised she even noticed or cared, recovering he shrugged, "headache I guess."

"Have you rested?"

Michael shook his head and Selene looked on at him, a flicker of something in her eyes like…fear. She stood coming next to him. "Why not?"

Michael looked at her with utter confusion at her demanding question. He shrugged his broad shoulders. "I wasn't tired."

She looked even more interested at this answer. "Edgy?"

He remembered tearing through the rooms of the house restlessly but wide-awake, so irritable. Pacing… "A little I guess," he admitted.

Selene took note of his skin visibly paler and she remembered. "Of course. How could I have been so stupid," she cursed under her breath. She took his hand pulling him along. "Come on, I have to get you down to the basement. Now."

Now Michael was completely confused. "What? Why?"

"There is a full moon tonight, we do not know yet of how you will react. I can't have you running around massacring deer and raccoons or myself."

They were descending the concrete steps and Michael recalled the last time he was a hybrid. The power, the rage, also an unstoppable need to protect Selene.

"I would never hurt you," he vowed.

Selene mentally slapped the piece of her that urged her to release him and not subject him to what was to come.

They reached a simple white room that smelled of death, death of lycans. Chains were upon the floor meant to restrain, a long silver whip upon the only table in the room meant for blinding pain. The human in him knew Selene would not be using it on him still the lycan in him was slightly fearful.

In chains he didn't know if he could protect Selene, he didn't even know if he could protect himself. He'd feel vulnerable, stripped of all defenses…

"The vampire in you may see me as a mate, however the lycan in you would sooner feast on my heart," she responded. "Sit."

Selene commanded him firmly the way a master does it's dog, what surprised Michael was how readily he did so. She crouched next to him chaining each wrist and it seemed she avoided his eyes when doing so.

"Selene…"

He was pleading with her and she found herself almost succumbing. As if by compromise, she stayed next to him.

He did not ask to be released again. "I didn't hurt you before what makes you think I will now?"

"Perhaps it was a stroke of luck, a fluke. Your body is still struggling to find the proper balance of vampire and lycan. Maybe it all ready has, I want to be sure. Being an immortal is an erratic process after the initial bite." She purposely made her voice unfeeling but then made the mistake of looking at him.

His blue eyes gave her a look of absolute defeat. Her mind told her to ignore him and stay steely however her heart was begging her to be kind to him.

Her heart won. She cupped his strong jaw in her hands and stroked it finding the nape of his neck to caress him. He leaned into her touch closing his eyes. "Two hours is as long as I'll ask you to bear it. If you are all right then…"

Michael nodded hazily in acceptance and his handsome face was not so mournful. Unable to stop herself Selene leaned forward meeting his mouth with her own. He seemed startled but almost immediately responded.

She mimicked his kiss of the previous night allowing him to know of her hidden love and devotion through mouth and tongue.

Her sharp hearing perceived the rattling of chains and she knew his hands reached to hold her. Her fingers curled round the hair at the nape of his neck and he allowed Selene to deepen the kiss, Michael purred low in his throat in response.

Then he tensed with a painful whimper and in alarm Selene pulled from him.

Michael himself recoiled away from her nearness. His body shook and she could hear a growl starting in his throat then the sound of hitched breathing. He fell to his side in incredible pain.

When she came next to him, he feebly attempted to push her from him.

It was as she expected. Michael was a hybrid but the lycan in him, before he became fully able to control it, would respond to the light of the moon.

"Don't Selene, stay back," he warned a hint of panic in his voice.

She didn't listen but stayed at his side to stroke his hair and face, to soothe him as much as she could against the pain. "Shhh…"

She still shuddered at the memory, the pain of becoming a vampire, as muscles and bones shifted all too quickly to become stronger and faster more deadly. She remembered one of the older vampires comparing the change to the pain of giving birth only ten times worse.

She could imagine lycans had it worse though as near everything changed at the rising of the full moon.

He quieted his protesting but not his pain-filled cries as he lay gasping for air. His eyes rolled around flickering from blue to black as he slipped in and out of consciousness. When he winced, she caught sight of his fangs, long and sharp like hers but thicker like a lycans.

Much as she hated to admit it to herself her neck seemed to ache for those fangs against it, ache for the feel of them sinking inside her.

She resisted the urge to sedate him, he would have to bear the pain in order to grow used to the change and strengthen until the pain was slight.

His skin was rippling and she could notice every muscle within him go rigid, sweat coating him. Involuntarily he whimpered like a young lycan pup.

Soon, he would change. At such a close proximity he could become capable of hurting her. But she could not leave him, not to suffer so terribly alone.

Selene left him for just a moment feeling the same panic for him seize her as the previous night when Kraven shot him.

Kraven. If she ever saw him again she would--

An agonizing howl cut off her thoughts followed by the sound of claws scraping stone. It chilled her insides the sound of Michael so human in thoughts and feelings, so innocent giving such an animalistic cry.

She swiped the scissors into her hands from a kitchen drawer and well as bowl of cold water and clean washcloth and ran back to Michael.

He lay on his back unnoticing of her, howling insanely, skin so deathly pale, too consumed in his suffering to notice anything. She cut away his shirt and ran a wet cold cloth against him.

The effect was almost instantaneous, his howls quieted to hybrid whimpers and human moans.

"Shh…" she soothed.

His skin took on a bluish tinge and his hands sprouted lethal claws. Michael growled low in his throat when his hybrid eyes caught sight of her. She started to edge away when she realized he was actually purring and relaxing at the sight of her.

Selene continued to massage his aching muscles till sleep took him.


	3. An Unfortunate Accident

Author's note: Well my loyal reviewers I've finally updated, deepest most sincere apologies for not doing so sooner. I didn't vanish off the face of the earth, the last three months have been crazy, I'm nowhome for summer vacation after freshman year in college, I'm currently looking for a publisher of my original novel and I had a bit of minor surgery on my foot, broke it in pointe classand got a little side sidetracked with resting up. Well I'm all better now and thank everyone of you for your kind reviews and hope you are all well too. By the way for those of you who don't know **Underworld: Evolution was announced to be released in theaters December 2nd, 2005 or January 20th 2006,** I'm hearing different things about this, point is, it's coming soon.Anyway the long awaited next chapter. Enjoy!

Oh yeah of course: I do not own Underworld or the characters and make no profit out of using Selene and Michael and several others for my own sick twisted world I call an imagination.

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Chapter Three

**AN UNFORTUNATE ACCIDENT**

Michael groaned, his eyes opening slowly. His sharpened vision quickly adjusted to the dimness of the room. There was a terrible ache within his shoulders, chest, arms and legs. Everywhere actually, but still he stood shakily.

He was surprised to see his wrists without the manacles of the previous night.

Instinctively he sniffed the air deeply.

Selene…

He wasn't surprised to find his female companion's scent led to the armory.

She stood in the middle of the mat her back to him with a sword upraised in one hand; she was still as a stone and watching what seemed to be an invisible enemy moving toward her. Without note of warning Selene parried her sword so swiftly he didn't see it looking with human eyes, however his predatory vision made a quick, automatic adjustment to the movement and it seemed the weapon was going in slow motion.

Pivoting she flung the silver blade backward in an effortless and artful gesture, the blade singing as it cut through the air and impaled itself deep into the wood of the wall.

Selene headed straight past him without hardly an upward glance.

"It's nearly mid-afternoon."

With a sharp jerk the blade came free into the vampiress's hand. "Yes, I know."

Michael wasn't surprised when she lacked anything but a short, give-nothing response, Still didn't stop him from trying once more. "Have you slept?"

"No."

Of course she hadn't.

"I'm sorry."

This time she sheathed her sword and placed it back into it's position on the wall then with pensive eyes studied him. "For what?"

Awkwardly Michael shrugged, massaging the back of his neck. "Keeping you up and if I…scared you."

The innocence Michael was able to portray in just a glance was something Selene was learning quickly not to underestimate, inside the black-eyed hybrid watched and waited for the right time to emerge. With a bit of training Michael would be able to take on an army of Death Dealers and a pack of lycans single-handedly but until then…

Selene was oddly weary, something was wrong.

Michael could feel the tension Selene was feeling in his blood, it was so strong it couldn't have been part of his imagination. More than memories were guaranteed through the viruses, there was also a sort of sixth sense of empathy he could feel when Selene's emotions were strong and unguarded.

Just as abruptly as the feeling had come it was gone and Selene once more faced away from him.

Michael chose not to ignore her tension despite knowing he might not get an answer. "What?"

"We've far outstayed our welcome. Night will fall within the next hour, the instant it does we must leave."

She quickly began to gather weapons from a silver chest engraved with some sort of ancient symbols. The vampiress retrieved from it a great sword that she then placed into a long black canvas bag sitting on the matted floor, another blunter sword but no less short than the previous wicked-looking blade, was placed into the bag too.

Swords, daggers, guns he could identify but some of these weapons he knew nothing of and were probably hundreds of years old. But Selene had sought the most bizarre ones out with confidence in her ability to use them. It was no doubt they were extremely dangerous, looking at the jagged edges and lethal tips meant for completely lacerating an enemy.

Selene lifted a booted foot to the edge of the weapon's table to further examine her preparedness. Twin silver pistols were placed in the holsters of each boot and Michael glimpsed the mean cleat-style blades on the bottoms of her boots.

"Here."

She had placed within Michael's hands a large-barreled gold-plated pistol, an emblem of a dragon's head was on each side of the barrel.

"One of our latest weapons," Selene explained. "The gun holds a clip of twenty-six bullets and still maintains the weight of your standard pistol. The trigger has three settings: standard, semi-automatic and automatic and delivers a shot three times as forceful as a hunting rifle would. Powerful," Michael noticed Selene looking at the weapon as though it were her newborn child, her eyes filled with pride. "Extremely dangerous but a good starter weapon with a good teacher."

For a moment Michael just stared at the weapon wanting desperately to get rid of it. He'd never killed anything in his life!

"Selene I don't know how to--

"It's quite simple," she cut him off with an unusually patient tone.

She took his hand in her own clutching his fist to the weapon the right way. Her index finger she placed over his own to rest lightly on the trigger, feeling the warmth of his blood already working it's magic on her skin. Selene ignored the sensation even mentally scolded that annoying inner voice of hers she felt lacked all reason.

"Straight arm," she instructed. For added emphasis she ran her other hand along his arm to correct his elbow.

A passion fire enflamed Michael straight to his toes. The action had been so simple, so innocent but still his hybrid nature…he could feel it responding fighting his reason hard, the vampire and the lycan both fully agreed only to two things: a good hunt and kill and Selene.

Selene herself was not as unaware of the effect of the gesture on Michael as she pretended to be. She hadn't meant to, she argued to her thoughts that spoke of great disapproval.

She just wanted to feel him, the graceful and lithe musculature of his limbs, there was a beauty to them and the warmth, the sweet, sweet warmth, because under that skin and the cause of that warmth was what she hungered for.

"Now," Selene spoke, shaking away previous thoughts. "Release the safety, take aim, right between the eyes of that statue there."

Michael released the trigger without hesitation and without Selene's help, and despite the heavy kick of the weapon Selene knew accompanied it's shot, he didn't react and his hand didn't waver one bit.

The weapon made slightly less noise than a regular gunshot.

Without approaching the statue Selene noticed the shot was dead center of it's target. Impressive.

Selene nodded her approval. "Very good." She scooped up the discarded weapons bag and using the momentum of her swing she placed the bag over her shoulder. "Keep that gun with you at all times if we are separated you may need it. Half are ultra-violet rounds, the other are silver nitrate bullets, we don't know which group will find us first and what that means. Do not hesitate to use it," she warned.

It seemed they were well equipped and ready to go perhaps earlier than the next hour and find someplace safer to stay, someplace further at least out of the country. The Death Dealers were very efficient in everything they did and being anywhere less than a thousand miles away from them would make finding herself and Michael a walk in the park.

It was about thirty-five minutes later when the two exited the house, Selene didn't run but walked at a brisk pace scanning the dark perimeter.

The sky started to rumble and a crackle of lightning scorched the night. It was going to rain soon.

Selene took the driver's seat and for that Michael was grateful, the previous night's aches and pains hurt terribly and seemed to grow worse the second he awakened. He said nothing to Selene about it, knowing full well how insignificant such a thing probably was at this point and time.

The rain began to fall within the instant of turning onto the main road and the silver Jaguar flew off into the night. Selene cut from the main road onto another less traveled. Thunder began to roll through the night breaking the tense silence.

Glancing through her rear view mirror Selene noticed just one car behind their own, what looked like a red Ford truck and another, a black Corsica, about twenty-five feet in front of them traveling at leisurely pace, but with all the curves and turns of Hangman's highway it would be a few minutes before passing was possible without endangering the two of them.

It was a road not often taken by the people of Budapest, it was a narrow mountain highway in which falling boulders onto the road happened often sometimes killing persons inside their cars instantly.

Selene hadn't forgotten their first encounter within a car that nearly killed them both, in fact she was still a little embarrassed about it, especially the part where she had been saved by a human from the near-drowning encounter when she was Selene, a highly respected Death Dealer a reputation earned due to her ability to easily escape death many, many times.

But because she owed Michael as safe and as comfortable ride as possible she was more than cautious despite her eagerness to flee the country promptly. She was also very concerned when she heard nothing from him, an unnatural silence and then what her ears perceived as the slowing of his heart.

Selene gingerly touched Michael's shoulder. "Michael."

Michael shifted a bit making a small noise of discomfort before answering. "Sorry, I--uh-" he groaned a bit at a suddenly sharp pain within his stomach, "fell asleep."

A possible explanation that would have made Selene let him be considering he hadn't slept really more than two hours the previous night, the rest of the time he spent slipping in and out of consciousness whimpering quietly, but the diminutive sound of pain from him didn't escape her hearing.

"It's all right but listen carefully now. The moon will rise very soon and I need you to try to focus, hold off the transformation as long as you can until we reach somewhere safe. Do you understand?"

"Yeah," came Michael's listless reply.

Selene started to wonder if maybe giving Michael a sedative was a better alternative. She had decided instead to wait it out see if tonight would be better on him, besides, tonight since they were on the move she wanted him awake in case there was trouble.

Selene glanced over to him, he was lying on his side facing the window, his breathing getting faster and shorter, as though he were lacking air.

So much power in him, both vampire and lycan wanting to dominate Michael's blood. Both viruses rapidly cutting and reshaping every gene they could find within him had to be the most painful sensation in the world.

Despite assuring herself that Michael would survive the process and knowing that the pain was the natural order of things Selene felt that familiar panic grip her.

_He's the descendant of Alexander Corvinus, he'll be fine, he'll be all right, _she told herself.

What if the lycans were wrong? What if the viruses are too much on a human being, even a descendant of Corvinus?

His skin was ice cold and sweat saturated his blonde locks, he seemed to have exercised all of his strength to lean into her touch.

Selene swallowed the bitter lump of fear in her throat and spoke in a clear, strong voice, "Michael listen to me you're going to have to--

At that moment there was a roar of an engine and the car quaked with the impact. The red Ford truck had slammed into Selene's own car and there followed the screeching of metal on metal as the passenger's side of the car hit the guardrail.

Selene quickly righted the car back onto the road and her eyes widened in shock to see two men in the truck, both in familiar black suits and holding familiar silver weapons.

The two cars were exactly nose and nose to one another and Selene dared meet their eyes. The vampire, a well-known Death Dealer by the name of Treyson in the passengers seat had extended a well-muscled and no-doubt accurate aiming arm out the window holding a magnum less than four feet from Selene's temple.

"Stop the car Selene," he warned.

Selene's challenge and unwillingness to comply to the order was easy to read in her bold green eyes and she assaulted the accelerator at the same time pulling from the edge of her seat her own weapon and firing it.

The bullet missed her foes by inches due to the driver's quick maneuver, the side door of the Ford on the driver's side scrapped the rocky mountainside disrupting the delicate foundation and causing a shower of rock to come tumbling down and they were back on Selene's tail within a second.

"Selene!" Michael called a warning.

Selene swerved just in time narrowing missing a falling boulder, the slick road of rain water caused the silver Jaguar to skid almost out of control before Selene managed to right them. "Hold on," Selene advised as they slid round another narrow bend.

The road had straightened but the Death Dealers were gaining and that wasn't all.

The black Corsica previously in front of them was less than a quarter mile in ahead and--

Michael had managed to sit up a bit, his breathing only in periodic gasps. "It's coming right at us," he choked out.

A bullet broke through the middle of the windshield, injuring neither but taking out a windshield wiper.

They were approaching a bend in the road…

Selene didn't even slow knowing full well as they approached the vampires in front of them their accuracy would only get better and better. Selene knew she didn't even have a chance of speeding past them, trying to dodge to the left and turn that sharp corner unscathed at such a high speed in the rain would send them careening off the road to their deaths.

The Ford was back at their side again, this time Treyson was shooting to kill. One of the tires went and for moment the Jaguar almost spun out of control.

Selene didn't have a chance with either option and both teams knew but what they didn't know was that Selene wasn't looking to use either option, the clever vampiress was going to do what she did best…improvise.

Pushing the accelerator all the way to the floor Selene roared her car towards the Corsica and bullets sprayed the vehicle.

"Stay down!" she shouted to Michael.

When they were only twenty-five feet away from the black car Selene switched to squeezing the brakes of her car and the tires screamed and the smell of burning rubber stung her nostrils.

It seemed the vampires in the Ford had sensed Selene's intentions and they too braked to move some distance behind her.

The silver Jaguar barreled into the Corsica sending it spinning out towards the guardrail and allowing Selene an opening to the left and just the right amount of slowing to make the turn. As they rounded the corner, Selene fired her weapon four times right where she intended to.

The black Corsica exploded into flames taking the red Ford truck trying to peel past with it.

Selene sighed in relief until she felt a sticky warmness trickle down her side.

_I've been shot._

Seemed Michael had fallen unconscious again and absently Selene stroked his skin despite her own injury that needed attention.

Forcing herself awake Selene's pale hands gripped the steering wheel tighter. She had to make it to someplace very, very soon.

Selene's hand rested over Michael's heart and that familiar sound of his existence was absent.

Michael wasn't breathing.

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Yes, yes, I know I am a cruel mistress, Michael's just so cute all hurt and helpless. Anyway more next week and if you have some time please read and review, if not well, life goes on. 


	4. Michael the Vampire

**Hello my friends. Well here you are. Sorry about how long it took I was having writer's block, but finally I finished the chapter. Warning: some err, sensuality and slight seduction in this chapter, I was listening to_ Past the Point of No Return_ from the Phantom of the Opera and I had no idea how hard it influenced me until I read it over. Hope you like.**

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**Chapter 4**

**Michael the Vampire**

Selene listened again more carefully to assess Michael's state. Her fingers trembled with anxiety that increased when she noticed Michael's skin lacked all heat. He was as cold as a corpse and no movement came from him.

No flowing blood, no heartbeat.

She had forgotten all about her own injury knowing Michael could be--

Selene didn't want to even think it. But it was there that unfamiliar horrible feeling of dread despite all her training, all of her self-control to forgot her emotions in situations like this. It had been easy only a week ago.

Only a week ago someone she'd known dying did no large amount of damage to her heart, sometimes vampires she had respected called for a day in which Selene mourned. She'd felt something then and it was anger, even more hatred for lycans. Anger she was used to, thankful for it even, it kept her going.

She refused to be some vulnerable, silly female waiting to be hurt or killed and she refused to allow someone to make her feel vulnerable, she couldn't bear the loss.

Not again.

But Michael, somehow he was there inside her in a place she had long heavily guarded, somehow he had snuck inside and easily sabotaged all of her defenses, she couldn't deny that, not now with him this way.

It gripped her, that feeling, the way it had many, many years ago when she was only twenty-three and the massacre of her family left her dead inside and alone in the world.

God, it was happening again…

She'd been doing everything she possibly could to rouse him, three minutes later he still wasn't breathing.

"Michael, Michael, come on…" she tried once more shaking him with her free hand.

Please, please wake up…

Then her hybrid gave a tremble and she was so thankful when the soft thumping of his heart returned, it was so faint but there.

"Hold on, Michael."

They'd made it off of Hangman's Highway and Selene's wrecked Jaguar came to a sharp halt after following a flickering neon pink sign just off the highway. She knew it was risky but all she could think of was Michael's dire state and her own wound that was bleeding heavily now.

It was a shabby, slightly run-down motel that looked rather like an enormous conjoined log cabin. It looked completely desolate even for Selene's liking but it would have to do, she needed somewhere warm and quiet where she could access Michael properly.

Getting out of the car Selene ran inside almost making as much noise with her entrance as with the car's sudden stop.

"I need a room," Selene said, completely aware of her demanding tone and purposefully used it. She was caught off guard by the wave of dizziness that hit her, she had to grip the edge of the counter for balance.

The young man at the counter looked her up and down briefly, eyeballing her strange skin-tight black garb and matching lengthy black jacket then finally returned to her face.

After a moment's hesitation the man withdrew a sheet of paper from behind the counter to the desk sliding it toward her. "You'll need to fill this out."

Selene had been prepared for this but it made her no less angry as she slapped a bundle of bills onto the table. In a hard and deeply threatening tone Selene spoke: "Listen to me, there's a thousand dollars there and I am in quite a hurry. My friend outside is very ill and needs to rest badly, now unless you would like me to hold you personally responsible for the precious time his health depends on that you are wasting, _give me a room_."

The startled man gather the bills, practically throwing the keys to Selene and without missing a beat Selene caught them racing from the office.

"Cabin 42!" the man called out to her.

Selene immediately ran to the passenger side yanking the heavily damaged door open. Michael still lay slumped in the seat of the car but his eyes were open, though barely.

"Michael, Michael," she tried shaking him firmly.

He seemed to have gained back some sort of physical strength or mental willpower, he turned into Selene's arm as she felt the pulse of his neck with her fingertips, his nose pressing firmly into her skin and he inhaled her scent deeply. "Selene," he mumbled weakly.

Selene skin tingled pleasurably at Michael's primitive action and she brushed off the sensation with a mental growl at herself.

"Yes, I'm here," Michael heard her familiar calm and quiet tone answer back.

He wanted to smile but only half managed it, he was so tired, his body cried for sleep and release from the pain.

"I'm taking you inside, don't move."

"No, I-- can--"

As she suspected Michael tried his best to stand only managing to give a weak twitch of his body and Selene admired his attempt. She stilled him by easily slinging him over her shoulder and the bullet wound screamed in pain.

Selene carried him inside ignoring his drowsy protests thankful there was no one watching as the scene was definitely a strange one. It wasn't every day a woman as small as Selene carried a man over her shoulder as effortlessly as some women carried a purse. She did notice he was surprisingly light, even taking into consideration her preternatural strength and Michael's lean frame, he was a bit lighter than he should be.

Probably the stress of the week's events that he wasn't eating as well as he should.

_Well Selene since when do you care about how much he's eating? Are you going to start taking his temperature every day too? _she spat at herself.

She lay him down as easily as she could onto the bed before staggering to her knees under the pain of her aching wound.

Seemed once again Selene's presence had roused Michael's attention as he was staring at her more awake than minutes before but still there was a haziness that only the very ill possessed.

"You're hurt," he remarked weakly.

Selene ignored him for the moment and gripped the edge of a sofa chair near the bed for support as the wound cried for attention. She began tearing away at her suit with a small knife. She was having trouble working it due the hot sting of a cut in her arm. She finally made her way to the wound and in a few muffled grunts of pain, the determined vampiress extracted the bullet and the wound began to slowly heal.

Another long cut formed in her suit and even though Selene couldn't see the wound she could definitely feel it and smell it, sliding the blade's edge under the ruined suit she discarded the torn fabric. The crook of her right elbow was almost purpling inside her pale skin with blood wanting to burst forth. The blood spilled onto her skin in a short spurt and Selene ignored it.

She would deal with herself later Michael's state was much more serious than a mild cut and a bullet, she would definitely live.

When her blurred vision cleared she stood shakily returning to Michael's side, his eyes lazily followed her. She pushed aside his dark blonde locks to touch his forehead. She almost recoiled feeling as though her hand was on fire.

He gasped in pain, then his eyes rolled drifting closed.

"Michael can you hear me?" Selene called shaking him firmly.

When his eyes rolled up to meet her own Selene noticed his peaceful blue gaze was no longer there, replaced by a familiar artic blue.

The iciness of his gaze was jarring, consumed in his vampire's nature.

Selene stopped cold, knowing in his present state he was very unpredictable and she wished not to provoke him especially in a state of bloodlust.

A state in which a vampire was the most dangerous.

But Michael…

What had stirred the vampire within him?

Selene could see a flame of passion burn in those vampire eyes, a look she had never, ever seen Michael possess before and her stomach gave an odd flutter. She had only once seen another fix her in such need for complete possession, however Kraven's feelings had done nothing but make her fearful at first but that fear had gradually dissipated to annoyance and anger.

But this…this feeling was something so strong, so new, so…

Intoxicating?

Never that, Selene's mind declared indignantly.

_Oh you are quite the liar Selene._

His eyes caught her arm in their hot-blooded gaze and he gave a soft purr that made Selene's eyes close involuntarily.

Michael's eyes became fixed on watching the blood trickle down Selene's pale flesh to form a small pool in the crook of her elbow.

The blood! Of course! The night was nearly over and Michael hadn't fed and now he was famished and beyond reason probably.

She had been afraid of this but had felt certain it was nothing she couldn't handle. She had her doubts now.

Selene swallowed down the lump in her throat and said evenly, "You'll need to stay awake just a bit longer. I will bring you blood and you should feel just fine."

Michael gave no sign of even hearing her, he was going to bite her and drink of her blood. She could see the lethal points of his fangs as he panted softly with need, his eyes half-lidded.

Selene's blood was pounding in her ears and tiny currents of pleasure rippled through her. She wanted to pull away but these feelings held her there.

She shook such reckless thoughts away and opened her mouth to shake Michael from his state. But before she could do as she intended or even conceal her injury from him, a searing, wet feeling came to her skin that took Selene by such surprise she gave a long hiss of discomfort that gradually changed to a tiny open mouthed gasp. She tried to pull away but Michael had held her firmly in an iron grip already the blood giving him strength, not to hurt but simply restrain.

Meek and innocent Michael had indeed become taken by a vampire's greater instinct: to feed.

His head lay nuzzled in her arm as his tongue set her skin aflame. Selene tugged once more half-heartedly, afraid of these sensations swimming through her as well as afraid of the reactions they had on her physical body. Her own artic gaze had surfaced to match Michael's own. For a few moments she had been boiling with indignation and fury wanting to strike him, but as quickly as it had come it was gone.

He tasted her in long, slow caresses, savoring the essence of her blood and it burned hotter and hotter causing her skin to tremble and Selene's fangs to extend to their fullest catching site of his throbbing pulse.

Despite her brain screaming of the danger she was in, the passion of him had easily subdued her once more and she no longer fought against hi, there was no point really, he wouldn't calm, his bloodlust wouldn't fade until he was full.

He pressed firm with just the tip of his tongue directly on the inside of her elbow and Selene nearly screamed as the sensation of pressure and heat was like a knife cutting into her. A light sheen of sweat began to form on her now hot skin, so pleasurable it hurt. Then he ran the flat of his tongue along the tiny rivulets that threatened to trickle onto the bed. When he returned to the wound he began to suckle gently almost lovingly pulling from her open vein all the nourishment he needed nursing alternately between long slow draws to short, fast ones.

She no longer feared the potential bite her hybrid could easily give her. The poison of the lycan strain could and definitely would kill her but he seemed not to desire marking her at the current moment and her heart couldn't help but take trust in that.

Selene bit back her moans, wanting desperately to gain back some of her self-control. Instead her efforts backfired as her fangs cut into her lower lip spilled her own blood into her mouth and she released a strangled whimper.

She hoped desperately when Michael returned to his senses he remembered nothing of this.

His grip loosened and his head fell away from her to collapse upon the bed. The vampire had retreated to allow Michael a night of deep slumber and Selene was glad to hear the thumping of his heart sounding in a clear, steady and powerful rhythm.

For a long while she sat beside him wondering what to do of these...emotions. What she had allowed to happen.

_He makes you so weak, you were ready to die for him. Willingly you gave yourself, your very essence to a lycan._

_No, a hybrid, _she corrected herself.

_As if that makes your actions any less foolish and lustful. _

Michael shifted slightly in his sleep stretching one long leg out and rolling over onto his left side. His hair softly fell over the right side of his face hiding his handsome features from her.

_He needed to feed, _she argued.

_No, you needed to **feel**,_ the voice argued back.

She lightly brushed away his hair since she dare not study him so intensely when he was awake, then he would have too many questions and she would only give him lies or nothing at all and each time she did she had to bury the bad feelings that accompanied it.

Selene stood, deciding she needed the distance to scold her foolish heart and allow the security of her mind to return, she would need it to survive.

_And protect Michael until he is strong enough to protect you both._

She couldn't decided whether or not she wanted to fight that thought down. She let it be, for now.

Coming to the window Selene frowned, watching the rain fall as she held a motel towel to her side and a dry wash cloth to her arm. In a few hours it would be day then sleep would take her and quiet her mind.

She couldn't wait for day.


	5. Giving In

Well, here you are everyone. I was in such a fluffy mood this came out. Hey don't worry though I promise you Selene and Michael's troubles are not over yet. Not by a long shot. With that said...enjoy!

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Chapter 5

**Giving In**

It was exactly seven a.m. when Michael Corvin woke the next day. The sound of sparrows and various other morning birds singing softly, mocking Michael with their normalcy.

With a groan Michael stretched his legs and blinked a few times to adjust to the presence of daylight, the warm sunlight blanketing him. He rose to the edge of the bed, his long legs just an inch short of the floor.

He felt…good. Better than he had felt in the past week, better than he had ever felt! Strong, he felt so strong and his body seemed to twitch for an outlet to release some of this mad strength into. And the energy! Michael was sure he could run six miles before his body began to feel anything. No aches, no pains and his mind felt so clear, his eyes and ears and nose aware of everything.

He felt, well…perfect. Except--

And yes, there it was and his mind was at ease. Selene was somewhere in the motel room and her scent danced with the most fiery enticement against his nose, caressing his senses.

Michael left the bedroom and followed a short walkway to a small, dark living room. There was an antique-looking wine-colored armchair about a foot away from a royal blue couch, the couch so narrow and shifty-looking that Michael wondered if it were possible if it could even support a person on it.

The couch was clearly stronger than it looked because Selene lay across it facing the back of the couch using her arm to pillow her head as she slept. The Death Dealer was no longer wearing her suit, instead she wore a pair of black form-fitting stretch pants and a black long sleeved, clinging t-shirt that just seemed so alien on her.

If he hadn't known her immortal secret he'd have feared her dead. She was so pale, pale as the moonlight, her face so relaxed and her red lips parted softly as if she had been paused in the middle of whispering words to someone.

Michael knelt next to Selene convinced that she would be much more comfortable in a bed, after all it was the least he could do for her after all she had done for him. He didn't worry she would wake, she hadn't slept well in days, it would probably take a marching band to wake her.

He stopped short as his hands moved to slink under her back and the bend of her knees noticing something amiss. Selene's scent was different, mingling with another tantalizing perfume. There was a faint sweet coppery scent.

Blood.

That meant Selene was injured and until Michael knew the extent of which she was, he wouldn't ignore it. Just because he was a hybrid didn't mean his medical knowledge was going to be forgotten.

The curious hybrid stole a look at Selene, she still lay sleeping just as peacefully as before and carefully Michael traced his fingers along her clothed skin. First from ankle to hip lightly but firmly looking for embedded weapons. He paused at the cuff of her pants wondering if it would be wise to do what he was considering doing. Steeling himself, he peeled back one pant leg exposing her skin all the way to the knee and Selene stirred just a bit before going still again.

Her legs were fine, all milky white skin unmarred and smooth as porcelain, soft as silk and Michael fought hard to ignore the things the exposure of her skin did to him.

Michael paused when he felt a slight dampness on the inside of her elbow, gingerly he uncovered the injured arm to exposed the wound. There was a cut quite large right across the inside of her elbow deep enough to have possibly penetrated an artery the flesh raised and swollen just a bit. But perhaps the strangest part was the bruise around the cut. Blunt objects tended to make heavy black or greenish bruises not dark red ones like this one, it almost looked like a--

It couldn't be.

But it definitely looked like one.

Shoving the foolish thought to the back of his mind Michael focused on the seriousness of the wound. It was already beginning to heal but it was best that it be wrapped as a disturbance of the wound could cause further bleeding.

The unfamiliarity of heat from Michael's touch on her bare skin made Selene nearly leap awake. Her glittering green eyes looked muzzy but were clearing to alertness quickly.

"What is it?" Selene inquired, she looked and sounded genuine confused but strangely patient about the interruption of her sleep.

Her patience was a good sign probably owed to lack of proper rest. Since he had indeed woke her and been caught red-handed, his fingertips had faint traces of her blood on them, he decided the truth couldn't hurt.

"Didn't mean to wake you," Michael said in that beautifully contrite tone Selene was sureno one but Michael could pull off without it sounding pitiful or unremorseful. "Just wanted to make sure you were all right."

Selene sat up fully moving with liquid grace, but the predator in Michael noticed how gingerly she moved. To a human it was barely noticeable, perfectly concealed, but to the wolf and vampire within, the weakness in her, was as naked as a newborn.

"Of course I'm all right," the groggy warrior answered with just a bit of impatience creeping into her voice.

"You're hurt," Michael insisted.

Selene was reminded of the previous night when he had said the same thing but unable to do anything to help but instead passed out and--

Those little butterflies were fluttering about again and Selene abruptly erased all thought of Michael's feeding from her mind and the butterflies calmed.

"There were Death Dealers last night, we lost them." She folded her arms in front of her bending her head forward slightly causing her hair to shadow across her right cheek and the deep green of those eyes looked out from the tresses. "The car however is nearly totaled we'll need another as soon as possible." She stopped and there was silence, Michael seemed to be waiting for more.

"You passed out on the highway, I suppose it was the change."

_And starvation, you forgot about that_, Selene's guilty conscience chimed in.

"The worst is probably over now, you seemed to have passed the most critical days," Selene remarked. She was hoping that this information would assure him and herself and also keep Michael off the subject of her injuries, especially the cut on her arm that seemed to throb faintly for Michael's touch.

"And you?" Michael asked without allowing for a moment his own good fortune to make him forget Selene's own injuries. "I should look at those wounds for you."

Selene didn't ask how he knew she was injured, that would have been stupid considering his sense of smell was probably even better than her own and also she didn't doubt he had been in the middle of trying to examine said wounds. Or he had indeed remembered more beyond the car ride, but she seriously doubted it, he had been going in and out so rapidly Selene wondered how he even remembered his own name.

"I don't need a physical Michael," Selene expressed in a rather clipped tone that surprised her when Michael didn't even flinch. "A shallow bullet wound and a small cut are hardly worth stitches, and like you, I too am a fast healer."

"And the bruise?"

Selene stood from the couch, one reason being that the idea of receiving a day of sleep was no longer appealing to her rapidly working mind and to distance herself from Michael's closeness, it was making her uncomfortable because she _had_ been comfortable right next to him.

"It's nothing."

So it was dropped. Or so Selene had thought.

Michael was still watching her, she felt naked under his gaze knowing he was trying his hardest to decipher rather that 'nothing' was indeed something to concern himself over. She didn't met his eyes again convincing herself he would get nothing more out of her if she stayed put.

Michael tried to let it go but then he also noticed Selene looked paler than usual and she seemed a little, just a little, sluggish and Michael had a feeling it wasn't due to sleep loss.

"You've lost a lot of blood," Michael commented after a few more moments. It was just like the first time he'd said it, coaxingly meek and understanding to get her to calm and do as he wished. It was so carefully done Selene wondered how many years of psychology had Michael studied to become so wonderfully good at it, or as she suspected, it was just a natural ability.

It brought Selene back to that night when the rain fell in long, heavy drops loud as pebbles against the windshield. Michael had sternly demanded that she stop the car and Selene knew right away that the threat was most likely an empty one, lacking any danger but a bit of fear and a healthy dose of disbelief. She easily quieted his demands with a real threat, a silver pistol.

But she would never forget what he did after.

_"All right,"_ he said gently. _"But you've lost a lot of blood."_

No one had ever spoken with such sincere concern as Michael had, he seemed to have forgotten he was her own prisoner. She hesitated at his words, so simple and quiet, the way she never had before that night and it scared her.

A strangely unselfish negotiation…

Being a Death Dealer Selene had been negotiated to at least a dozen times often after hours of torture. Some lycans pled for the mercy of a silver bullet to the brain, others to be given the mercy of her heart as they had a husband or wife and children, or to be more accurate pups and a mate to return to. Others offered her things she could care less about, the most popular being money and so-called valuable information in exchange for their lives. Even when the tears flowed Selene's resolve never once wavered, their pleas didn't faze her, if anything they fueled her as their cries were mostly whimpers and short howls, reminding her that they were lycans she would find some peace in silencing.

Now she realized most of them had been young, most between the ages of sixteen and twenty-eight even their eyes were young, the mark of the lycan still raw and open on their skin when she put a bullet into their brains.

It sickened her so severely she fought not to vomit whenever she thought about it.

So she didn't.

"I'll live," Selene answered harshly once she returned to reality.

Since the subject of Selene's wounds had come up a piece of Michael kept nagging on and on, telling him to leave it be as Selene requested, telling him he really didn't want to know. But the rest of him demanded his curiosity be sated and now.

Before Michael knew what he was doing he had gripped her small injured arm just above the elbow firmly but without roughness and peeled back the shirt sleeve.

It wasn't Michael's strength that surprised her but his nerve and Selene let him know by glaring at him so hellishly angry that the deep green of her eyes faded becoming a frosty blue.

"Let me go," Selene said quietly but the threat was definitely there.

Instantly Michael did but not before he had taken a better look at the bruise Selene had been trying desperately to conceal before her hybrid discovered what it was.

He didn't seem to be that concerned about Selene's angry reaction his realization had jarred him. "It was me. I did this to you." He shook his head in numb disbelief. "I fed from you."

Her anger faded like a small fire doused with a bucket of ice water. Selene carefully pulled back the sleeve of her shirt not knowing quite how to proceed now that Michael knew.

"Yes," she answered.

She looked at him now noticing he didn't look back and she knew he wouldn't. He was filled with shame, so much he looked physically sick when only seconds ago he looked in the pink of health.

He sank to the couch blinking in a stunned stupor-like way. "Selene," he said her name as though she were as delicate as crystal. "God, Selene I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," she answered and she meant it.

He was quiet still shaking his head in horror then finally he asked in a small voice Selene had to strain to hear. "Did I do anything else?"

Selene's heart ached with adoration and care for him knowing of the terrible guilt he felt in having done such a thing to her and he looked so full of despair awaiting her answer, it looked as though a yes answer would kill him.

She came next to him as if to show him she wasn't angry and to calm him and Michael inched away as though afraid his desires would betray him once more. "No, you fell asleep immediately."

Another long silence but Selene could almost see the reels of last nights scene playing over in Michael's head, the horrible way he imagined it.

"Why didn't you stop me?"

"You were very ill last night, dying. You needed to feed to survive the change, I didn't exactly have blood on hand…" She left it at that.

It seemed a particularly nasty image of himself violently feeding had sprang to his mind. "You didn't have to let me, Selene. I could have killed you."

"Enough." She was neither cruel or impatient but tenderly demanding. She gripped his chin in her hand. "Look at me Michael. You are not an animal, nor did you take me the way one does. You fed and I allowed it, I've suffering nothing but a small bruise for my trouble."

"But if I bit you why didn't you--

"You didn't. I was already bleeding more than enough."

He looked at her this time but with those grieving eyes she hated to see. "Why?"

Selene wasn't quite sure what he was asking and her expression must have shown it.

"Why do you keep saving me?" he reiterated.

She was surprised to hear him ask such a question, surely he knew, or felt it.

For the briefest moment he could have sworn he saw a smile ghost over her face. "I could ask you the same question."

In her eyes he found the answer to both their questions. Something so beautiful had flickered inside those depths, he knew it had been a long while since her eyes had ever looked that way. But just as quickly as it had appeared it was gone, fear and anger like a winter wind blowing out a candlelight.

For the second time that day Michael surprised her, capturing her mouth with his own, but after the fierceness of the speed of which Michael moved there was nothing else to suggest aggression. His mouth had gently brushed hers, so feather-light it almost wasn't there, like the most delicious fantasy, making those butterflies dance around in Selene's stomach. His lips tasted her firmly now, his tongue parting open her mouth and tickling the tip of her own seeking tongue.

Selene didn't retreat from the arms that held her, both hands holding her waist but gripping loosely, massaging the soft skin. She could have easily removed herself from his embrace and she planned to, not wanting him to see how she felt about him and how easily she crumbled when it came to him. Instead of prying him away she trailed her hands up his arms and down again giving him the most pleasurable goosebumps and letting him know to proceed.

Through the haze of their embrace Selene wondered: was it really their fourth kiss?

The kiss in the interrogation room had been a mere distraction that had awakened something in them both. The second, in the lycan's lair had been initiated by Michael but Selene had allowed it in fear of what the night would bring, and they have kissed as though it were their last. The third time, on the second night of Michael's change Selene had done it without hesitation knowing she held the cards and knew the sweet sensations would calm him. But this one, this one was without trickery, selfishness, or fear.

It was pure. It was honest.

He went on kissing her taking his time, so softly, so tenderly. One moment he was caressing her tongue's underside then tracing the left side of her tongue in a long, slow sweep before returning to dueling with the very tip.

When he broke their kiss Selene's eyes opened ever so slowly as if coming out of an incredible dream. Michael only gave her a gentle smile.

They were quiet for several moments. Since peace had returned it seemed Selene's body was willing to rest once more and very soon.

"You should get some sleep," Michael suggested noticing Selene's eyes still carried the same dreamy-qualityminutes afterward.

She didn't answer a deep numbness had swept through her and Selene closed her eyes.

Michael watched her for several moments as she slept before returning to the bedroom. He closed the blinds first then the curtains before returning to Selene.

He lifted her easily carrying her to the bedroom where he was sure she would rest more easily.


	6. A Conflict of Interest

**Chapter 6**

**A Conflict of Interest**

Selene awakened to the soft patter of rain slapping against the bedroom window. A growl from the night sky alerted her that they were to expect another night of stormy weather.

A flicker of movement, something red, snapped her attention to the night stand. Her pistol lay there and a small battered alarm clock that was dust-covered and had a large white sticker along the side of it with the words: _Property of Riverstone Motel_.

6:37 p.m.

She wasted barely ten minutes in the shower knowing time was of the essence. She was assured that she didn't have to worry much about Michael being gone, his scent lingered in the shower, he'd been there less than an hour before, and trailed into the den.

Tugging on her boots, ignoring her pounding headache and with the heavy canvas weapon's bag in hand Selene was ready. She did spare a moment to check her wounds of the previous night and noticed for the first time since her awakening that they had been carefully wrapped.

There was really no need to, the wounds were shallow enough to be nothing more than mere scrapes as of this evening, still she couldn't seem to bring herself to remove them.

Just in case, she thought and refused to assess it any further.

Michael hadn't noticed her when she crept into the den. He was standing at the far edge of the living room tracing the edge of the room with almost lazy footsteps that were more wistful than bored. By the way his eyes softly narrowed and his face took on something like a frown he was definitely thinking.

Perhaps she was intruding but she was oddly compelled to just watch him, perhaps it was the predator in her that was more than vaguely interested in watching him as he remained unaware of her.

"Michael," she called.

He blinked slowly looking slightly confused.

"We should go now."

That did it. His eyes snapped at her words, this time fully focused. "Yeah, all right."

It only took the two a few minutes to prepare. Selene was a bit surprised to see the man at the desk of the previous night was not there, instead a taller, dark haired man about the age of thirty was standing there.

He didn't notice her step inside, he seemed to be trying his hand at fixing a worn out television set that was perched on the far right side of a table behind the main desk.

The room that once stunk of damp shoes and ancient wood was now heavily perfumed in the smell of spicy red cider and pine, masking the previous smells. She inhaled the air once more, her nose obsessed with identifying another smell.

Selene didn't wait for his acknowledgement before throwing the keys atop the desk.

"Hey."

In mid stride Selene turned back. The dark haired desk clerk was smiling at her, dangling the retrieved keys in one hand. "There's no name for you under this key."

Of course there wasn't, she hadn't wanted there to be one in the first place, which was why she paid the old man for his discretion the previous night, she had a feeling she couldn't pull the same trick twice.

A fine effort gone to waste really…

"Hate to insist but I need a signature for this key." He continued to grin at her, in a friendly sort of mischievous way.

She wanted to pretend she didn't hear him, she wanted to just keep on walking out the door, she'd had enough delays.

_It's only a human Selene, you're getting quite paranoid about everything nowadays._

Giving the man a smile that she hoped passed for friendly she replied, "of course."

She reached for the beaten clipboard on the far right of the desk, hearing clearly the cracking of bad reception on the old radio next to the television with intervals of what sounded a lot like classical music. She raised her pen beginning to scrawl hurriedly when she felt the man's eyes taking in her features.

Biting back her annoyance at such open lewdness, Selene looked up then before finishing her signature. "Beautiful dog you have," she said offhandedly identifying the scent finally.

Indeed there was a rust-red colored bulldog curled up on a heavily chewed blanket in the middle of the floor behind the desk.

The man barely glanced back at the dog before leaning closer unfazed by Selene's unresponsive behavior.

"I'm guessing you're a dog person," his voice was lowered a bit to lean even closer.

Two things happened at once, Michael entered the office and the once sleeping dog behind the desk snapped awake, barking and snarling viciously at the vampiress.

The man jumped startled grabbing hold of the dog's collar, "Settle down Bear, settle down." The beast continued lunging towards Selene foaming in it's eagerness. The man quickly backed the animal into a nearby door, clumsily kicking him along. "Sorry about that, he's never done that before."

In response a loud rasping growl sounded in the office, a sound that was no longer a warning of attack but a promise of murder.

Michael stared at the man for a long while before turning to Selene to ask: "you ready?"

There was a hard glare in his eyes and a strange tenseness she could see in his body. She didn't answer but followed him out the door glad for his interruption.

"What took you?" the hybrid questioned almost immediately after they stepped into the rainy night.

"The human," she answered wearily. "Believe me if an inconspicuous hasty exit were possible I would have made it. Be it vampire, lycan or human I want us to go as unnoticed as possible."

"And signing a check out form with your name on it isn't going to somehow attract attention?" Michael wondered.

Selene gave him a look that seemed to suggest she was considering shooting him. "Kate Brooks and Scott Noland checked out at 7:25 this evening, no one else is going to know otherwise."

The car groaned as Selene slammed her door shut, satisfied that the beaten Jag didn't fall apart.

The engine coughed to life and they turned onto the mountain road, Selene's mood grew even more sour when she noticed the left headlight on the car was out. The gas gauge read just below a full tank of gas, once it was gone they were going to need another vehicle.

"You'd best keep your hybrid nature in check if you're so concerned about helping me help us go unnoticed," Selene remarked.

"I didn't--

"You were snarling in that office like a wild animal," Selene reprimanded before he could finish. She sighed before continuing in a much gentler tone, "you've got to learn to stay calm and respond only to real threats."

Michael nodded once but didn't speak again for a long time.

* * *

They turned on into town just six hours later.

Why had they stopped? There was still at least another three hours until daylight.

Michael looked at Selene curiously but she didn't answer his look.

Going into town was risky and the idea was to lay low but they needed supplies and a vehicle immediately and Selene knew just the right person to go to.

At the corner of what looked a lot like a strip club in the middle of nowhere they parked and proceeded to the narrowed alley entrance. A husky-voiced singer purred within to a seductive beat of drums and electric guitar.

A stocky man in large black shades greeted them at the back door. He looked unsure of what to make of Michael but seeing Selene erased the tenseness from his body.

"I need to speak with Morgan." The human quickly ushered the two inside and they found themselves in the shadows of a richly lavished sort of brothel. Beautiful blondes, stunning brunettes and gorgeous red-heads all possessing darkly-lined jewel-like eyes you couldn't turn away from lounging round or swaying seductively to the thrumming of music for their clients.

Human clients, from the scent of them.

Michael didn't quite know what to make of such a place and what they were doing there.

He didn't have to wait long to receive answers. At the far right corner of the shadows sat a fairly regal-looking woman, the light of the room catching her glossy long bone-straight red hair and scarlet red cupid's bow lips.

She puffing leisurely on a cigarette where she sat between two men.

A tendril of cigarette smoke snaked past her lips as she focused her eyes on Selene and Michael, lifting one eyebrow and inclining her head slightly seemed to be a sort of invitation.

Selene signaled for Michael to follow and he did so. Their host extended her hand beckoning the two to sit across from her, only after Selene did Michael follow.

"Selene," she greeted warmly. "Certainly has been a long time since your last visit."

Michael's suspicions and nose has been confirmed when a smile lit their host's face and pearly white fangs glittered.

It was no surprise that the hybrid's stomach seemed to groan in hunger, the scent of blood everywhere. Many of these vampire had crystal glasses filled with blood, real blood, none of that bland plasma that did nothing for the taste buds.

"My apologizes," Selene said, there was a beat in which she took a look around once more at their surroundings. "I'll assume business has been well."

"Booming, you know the human heart, always lusting for the kiss of a vampire," she stole a glance at Michael and snuffed her cigarette out before speaking again. "Until last week, local lycans have found reason to expand their territory, hunting widely within this area, terrorizing my clients all the time."

"You have weapons and trained men, Morgan," Selene pointed out. "Besides that, you must think of those who need your protection."

Michael noted Selene's tone that lacked any aggression and was almost bored at the mention of lycans but seemed only interested in helping an old friend.

"My arms are not far reaching like those of the coven Selene. I have but only six trained men. These lycans may be facing extinction but their numbers greatly surpass seven." It didn't take long for her to sober and become grave. "They hunt not for vampires but humans for the first time in a long time. A pack came sniffing around here just yesterday, young ones, four males and a female." The redheaded vampire gave attention to the man at her right. "Hayden was alone on duty, they left him unharmed, but managed to drag away two humans."

Selene addressed the man on her right with suspicion shining in her eyes, "why did you not shoot? If not for the sake of yourself, the humans?"

"Because I gave orders not to," Morgan answered. She gave a wave of her hand and without hesitation her two men stood dismissing themselves.

Their hostess quickly downed what looked like her sixth glass of blood, licking her lips frowning at the empty glass before continuing, this time with an artic gaze Michael had seen Selene possess few times.

"The lycans are growing, rapidly in numbers, not just here but all over. They've suddenly come from hiding. Something has changed hasn't it Selene? The war has changed, with the coven and you."

Michael, beginning to feel invisible, was finally given Morgan's full attention.

"Has it to do with this one? This one who's scent is very much lycan and very much you Selene?"

Selene and Michael met eyes before Selene turned away but not before Morgan noticed the flicker of emotion in the vampiress eyes.

Morgan's eyes widened in understanding. "The second hybrid…"

Selene hadn't been prepared for the news to be this far reaching only days after. But something else caught her attention.

"What do you mean another hybrid?" But the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach knew what Morgan was going to say.

In the anxious silence Morgan extended one pale arm palm up across the table, she carefully slid down the long flowing sleeve of her arm.

"Morgan…" Selene uttered softly in sympathy.

Michael had never seen such a horrendous wound, the flesh gone completely from a large portion of the inner forearm, visibly horridly mangled musculature and open arteries.

The boldness of Morgan was gone, there was no sense of humor in her either. She seemed to be fighting to not reveal any sense of fear. "Markus, paid me a little visit two nights ago. He was anything but warm and loving."

So Markus was awake and on the move…

"He thought I was harboring you, said you were wanted by the coven." Morgan retreated the injured arm back into her lap once again concealed. "He also mentioned another. A lycan turned hybrid that shares Corvinus blood with Markus. I've seen what Markus has become, a being of godlike power, his scent tainted with lycan. The strangest thing was fewer than six Death Dealers accompanied him in his raid here."

Selene now realized why Morgan had halted any attack on the lycans and why the lycans had chosen not to attack.

"Lycan and vampire are without leaders, without guidance, and know not what Markus will do or who he is for." Morgan shrugged. "I take my cue from this confusion, until one of my men or women are harmed I see no reason to stir the waters."

Morgan's weakness and fear was strange for Selene still she tried once more for any sense of the old Morgan she knew. "For one to have no passion for the sport of blood you were a very capable Death-Dealer."

Michael could see it now. This Morgan seemed to have an unspoken authority about her and it was clear she was in charge.

Morgan had a sort of cool femininity to her, a flirtatiousness, but anyone could feel this vampire was capable of much damage.

"I'll take that as a compliment from you Selene."

"So you know about Viktor, Amelia and Lucian?"

"I've only heard they are dead. Separation from the coven has me receiving all of the news last."

"Markus hunts me for the hybrid and for the slaying of Viktor," Selene admitted.

Morgan's fine-arched eyebrows raised in interest, "I must know what ever possessed one so loyal to Viktor to commit such a treason crime?"

It hurt. Feeling Selene's own hurt was like a fresh cut and Michael wished she would allow some small amount of comfort, he knew better though. Especially here, especially now.

"It doesn't matter now. What you need to know is that Michael and I are not your enemy." Selene paused, "nor enemies of the lycans."

"You're not?" Morgan asked and Michael nearly joined her in question.

Michael didn't know whether to be proud of being called Selene's or insulted at the idea of being owned by anyone.

Selene ignored the question. "Michael and I seek shelter. Our weapons are limited and our car is ruined. Tell me I can still depend on you?"

Morgan nodded resolutely. "I usually don't allow lycan's within these walls, but being a hybrid and your mate--

The dark-haired vampire rolled her eyes. "Michael is not my mate Morgan."

Morgan chuckled at how quickly Selene argued her words, "then tell me who's mark that is that scars the left side of his neck?"

For some reason the suggestion of Morgan's tone was too much for Selene to look their hostess in the eyes.

"It's a long story."

Morgan made a noise of agreement holding a new cigarette between her lips. "One I expect to hear all of in exchange for this favor you ask."

Selene finally stood crossing her arms in front of her chest looking down at Morgan for sometime before deciding. "Done."

Morgan's sly grin was back again, she gave a snap of her fingers and the two men who sat previously were back. "Show our friends where they may rest. I'll have a car for you in the morning."

"What of the weapons?"

Morgan shook her head firmly. "I can't grant you weapons that may harm Markus, despite what he has become." She ended the discussion by leaving their sight, walking away deep into the darkness of the bordello.

* * *

"What is this place?" Michael asked.

It was barely five minutes later when the two were alone that the hybrid began his questions.

Selene was knelt across the room from him carefully unlacing her boots. "Morgan's business, a sort of brothel for vampires and humans alike. The vampires here are young ones that prefer a more natural food source, the humans here are bedded by these vampires and as payment are always bled by blade for feeding to avoid accidental death or turning."

"I thought vampires didn't feed from humans anymore."

"Morgan never much liked the idea of living off plasma, she was brought before the coven for suspicion of late night human feedings. Her second offence was a treason charge, in a late night raid of a lycan den. Morgan allowed four mothers and at least six pups escape. Viktor was furious. Morgan had become such a problem, such a suspicion, amongst the coven, Amelia, Markus and Viktor were awakened exclusively to give judgment."

Selene carelessly discarded the bag of weapons before sitting down across from Michael. Her eyes were not on him but a jagged blade she held to the light, it's reflection in her eyes.

"Had not been for Markus, Morgan would have found herself dismembered. He spoke in her defense, despite what going against Amelia and Viktor could mean, and she was given only exile."

Instead of quieting Michael took Selene's tolerance of his questions even further, curiousity more than he could stand. "Why would Markus want to risk so much?"

"I'm not sure if Markus wanted to he would have been able to favor her punishment."

"What do you mean?"

This time Michael had Selene's full attention. "Morgan is not like other vampires. Morgan's mother and father were both born in the coven and bonded quickly. But bloodlust is deadly and dangerously high in those naturally born, so in consummating such a union, Morgan's mother marking her mate drained him dry. Morgan was born of her father's seed and potent spilled blood. An insatiability no one could understand was part of Morgan. Morgan began preying on blood and sexual pleasure many centuries before anyone knew."

"You're telling me that Morgan is a--

"Succubus, a very rare thing within the coven. Despite Markus' own power and Morgan's youth, Morgan was able to draw Markus to her easily. Morgan was given privilege never before granted, to mark and bed an Elder. By all accounts Markus wasn't a very tolerant leader but when it came to Morgan, Markus was different, changed."

"He loved her."

Selene smiled at Michael's sweet hopefulness despite herself. "Perhaps. However despite their frequent feedings and sharing of physical pleasures, Morgan was insatiable. Morgan grew out of control with her feedings when Markus was put into hibernation. She became most unreliable as a Death Dealer and member of the coven. It was all too easy the decision to exile her. The harm that befell Morgan was perhaps only possible due to Markus' new lycan strain. Succubus' charms have little to no effect on lycans."

"So you trust her to help?"

"There are few more deadly or trustworthy. She may not be ready or willing for a battle now but her time of submission to Markus and the local lycans will definitely be short-lived." She gave Michael a look of solemn seriousness. "With Markus awake and now a hybrid we are going to need all the help we can get."

* * *

Alright you guys that's all for now, hopefully I'll be able to keep up this new writing bug that's bitten me, I'm out of practice but superexcited to continue this. 


	7. The Hunting Party

I've returned!!! Thank you for your continued love and support, I apologize for my absence and if you wish to know more about my long absence please refer to my homepage or just continue on to the story. I'd like to remind readers with questions about timing that this story takes place directly after _Underworld_ with _**no ties**_ to _Underworld Evolution_, possibly _Underworld Rise of the Lycans_ I hadn't decided. Also:

I suppose I should answer a few questions I had from one of my reviewers. One comment being 'Selene seemed to be a little too knowledgeable about hybrids and their nature. As far as anyone knows, Michael's the only one who's ever lived more than an hour.' While that is definitely true Selene is a smart woman and can put two and two together, studying your enemy is something all successful armies do, so Selene has studied lycans to hunt them more efficiently as well as knows enough about her own vampirism to find commonalities in the way both react to various things. She speaks of both species having bloodlust, a need to kill and hunt. After all if your body is craving blood and flesh, a mind has to adapt to becoming much more predatory in order to get it, it's what we call a survival instinct. I wanted too to address initial bites from both species (it's probably not sunshine and roses it is a **_virus _some sickness is to be counted on). I'm sure such a drastic change to the body could be compared to having acid given to you in an IV. **

Selene's exact words are as follows concerning hybrids said to Michael: "Perhaps it was a stroke of luck, a fluke. Your body is still struggling to find the proper balance of vampire and lycan. Maybe it all ready has, I want to be sure. Being an immortal is an erratic process after the initial bite."

Selene makes no statement really on hybrids, but immortals because both vampire and lycan qualify and what is Michael if not vampire **_and_ lycan? **

There was also I believe a question concerning UV and silver nitrate rounds found by Selene, I guess it may be easy to conclude Selene had found them in the safe house, however that is simply not the case, nor had I stated she had, she'd simply given them to Michael in the safehouse. I had in mind Selene finding the UV rounds earlier in the night when she valiantly tried rescuing Michael from the interrogation room. In her holding Singe hostage she'd have taken his weapons and what else were the lycans using besides UV rounds for their dearest cousins? I will try in the future to be more clear about these things…

**_THE HUNTING PARTY_**

When the sky was barely began to lighten signaling upcoming morning Selene found herself alone with nothing but the sound of the wind in the trees to keep her company.

Michael was snoring softly no more than a few paces across the room in the large poster bed and for that she was glad, best the hybrid sleep now.

Their peace and safety was short-lived, she was sure of it.

With her wounds since healed she was nearly in perfect form to fight again if only she could find serenity in sleep. But Selene knew sleep was to be denied to her, not with her mind stirring with questions and concern for their next step.

They could not stay here long it would be perhaps another day or two before Markus would return, she was sure of it. If not to lay claim to Morgan then certainly to recheck his sources. Viktor may have been known for strict and harsh ruling and Amelia for her cunning but Markus was effortlessly efficient and seemed to have eyes everywhere. Employing far less brute force in matters of both war and politics Markus was a silent predator, the kind to be taken very seriously.

She quietly padded from the room into the halls before finding descending the velvet-lined stairs to the alleyway entrance she and Michael had entered.

Surprisingly she met no resistance, a few vampires meandering in the halls with their humans barely noticed her leaving the safety of the brothel.

She'd only little more than half an hour before day so she hurried, scanning for tell-tale depressions in the cement that indicated lycans in their natural form that had been visiting. Lycan claws being as powerful as they were easily cut through steel, bone and concrete, they almost always left evidence in their footfalls.

The trail was simple enough to follow, rounding back alleys and side streets.

Then she heard them.

A whine of lycanthrope, desperate for aid. A long silver blade protruded from the chest of the beast in the gutter. The frightened lycan snapped its jaws spotting Selene edging closer.

It didn't matter the ex-Death Dealer could see clearly the condition of the pitiful creature. The site of the knife wound was swollen and blackened, smoking.

Silver left in the heart of the lycan. The allergen prevented blood clotting and swelled the heart and circulatory tissues. Once embedded in the heart, soon the lycan would either succumb to blood loss, suffocate from the swelling or the blistering burn of the alloy as it ate through surrounding tissues.

A most cruel and painful death she dealt herself a handful of times.

She was thankful Michael had not accompanied her, he could not help here and he'd insist on trying with his only reward being a possible bite.

Slender, shorter and more fine-boned than most lycans she'd encountered and there was a simple explanation.

This was a young female no more than 18 years old the mark of a lycan barely healed over.

The female was quieting and finally still.

Once the female had passed Selene retrieved the silver blade surprising herself in how much care she'd taken to remove it to avoid ripping through more flesh than necessary.

Her feelings of sickness she was sure she could attribute to hunger, but she'd never known hunger to feel so heavy and foreign…

* * *

Sweeping his eyes round their room Michael found Selene was nowhere to be found and worse yet her scent was lost amongst a great many others, human, vampire and blood. Great amounts of coppery sweet-smelling blood flooded his nose distracting him from her.

_Later_, he told his stomach that was roaring with hunger, _Selene first._

A cold clang and slight pressure round his right ankle caught him so off guard he nearly lost his balance and slammed to the well polished marble of the floor.

Chained again.

"Pity…"

Michael rounded to the voice immediately.

He found the pretty redhead seductress standing merely three feet from him. One hand rested on her cocked hips the other hanging limply at her side as though she couldn't be bothered with being on alert with he who was all too lycan. She no longer carried an expression of mischief dimmed by sharp fatigue like the previous night, but perfect calm and there was even a glimmer of playfulness in her eyes.

Michael however was no fool and therefore capable of looking much closer to see simmering just below the surface a dangerous predator ready to burst forth in a second's notice.

"Selene's mark passed no amount of grace onto you, hybrid."

Her statement was almost mocking if not for the offhanded way it was uttered.

"Selene," he remembered, "where is she?"

A long tendril of smoke curled from her scarlet lips, though Michael couldn't recall seeing her light a cigarette it rested casually between her pale hands. "She will return shortly."

She still hadn't taken her eyes off of him and Michael couldn't decide if that detail was worth concerning himself over, the human in him was squirming under the vampire's even gaze but the lycan seemed only mildly curious and not even mildly threatened.

But the most concerning to him was the way his hunger seemed to shift into something else entirely, a pleasant tingle that beckoned him to the redhead.

_So this is what schizophrenia is like,_ Michael mused.

Smoothing over the rumpled sheets Morgan dropped on the high four poster bed crossing her legs in front of her with the grace of liquid mercury. Her long black duster similar to Selene's peeking open to reveal a small pistol at her hip.

He thought better to focus on something else besides the enigmatic Death Dealer and tugged at his shackled ankle, annoyed at being treated like a disobedient dog not trusted to sit patiently for master to return.

When the ex Death Dealer stood suddenly striding towards him he couldn't help his immediate human reaction to back away and the heavy chain once taut with strain had snapped with little effort. The hybrid stared, the shackle snapped as though it was only made of flimsy string when once a chain of even less severity had held him contained in a safe house nights before when a gun looked his only option for freeing himself.

She made no move away from him nor could Michael manage anything but to stare in awe at the broken heavily gauged shackle.

Morgan merely raised a finely arched brow at the hybrid. "Of course I've never been one to overlook the value of brute strength."

He eyed her, unsure of the coy playfulness underlying her comment, this suspicion still present in his question: "what time is it?"

Morgan took note of his suspicion but did nothing to ease his discomfort, if anything she eyed him more openly, unapologetic in her appraisal. He was a handsome thing that would wear immortality well. For now though his hybrid was cleverly hidden and only her nose was capable of telling the truth of his blood.

His skin had yet to take on the ice white pallor of a vampire nor the slightly more pallid grey look of the average lycan in human form. Lycan skin in human form was often much less starkly pale, given the ability to walk during the day, however the darkness seemed to cling to them, and slight grey shadows often lined the creatures, hollows of the cheeks and just beneath the eyes. Though only noted by the sharper vision of other immortals, their skin remained slightly roughened like new leather from the constant need to accommodate shifting bones and organs at will.

Michael's skin was glowing with health, tan, no a very pale golden all over indicated he'd once been a human who sought sunlight, but it was a fading imprint, suggesting that the night was much more habitual for him and had been for perhaps little over a year.

_American? _she wondered.

No more than 28 years old she'd guess. Pale green eyes that gave a yellow brown glint fit his face that was all clean, straight-lined cheekbones and jaw.

Where Markus was all bold angular lines, Michael's own bone structure was somehow less severe. Markus shared the same natural shade of red as she, common in those of an Old World Hungarian bloodline, but Michael had soft dirty blonde hair and softer expression than Markus's own, still not uncommon in the Hungarian bloodline.

She didn't ponder too much on why she sought to find similarities in two immortals who's shared bloodline, thanks to centuries of change, knew nearly nothing of any kind of familial ties. A drop of ink in a running stream, more absent than present.

"Nearly 3 in the afternoon. I suppose it's safe to say you hybrids are more the nocturnal sort."

Morgan turned her attention to the table that sat in the farthest corner of the room, Michael was surprised to see a tray there, a tall chalice filled to the brim with what Michael could guess was blood and something else plated and covered with a grey lid he couldn't begin to guess at.

He hoped and prayed it contained a steak, or better yet a cheeseburger, loaded with pickles and cheese.

Wishful thinking, a fantasy, that had no room in the head of a hybrid, appealing to neither lycan nor vampire in him, only the human and he wondered when that part of him would quiet all together.

Morgan forced the tray into the hybrid's hands. "You should eat, times like these…well one cannot afford to be without their full strength nor all wits about them."

His brow creased and a slight frown followed as he eyed the tray.

"Come now, I didn't lace it with silver nitrate," she remarked.

Michael would have laughed if the situation were not so completely…humorless. Here he was with an utterly stunning vampiress in her lavish brothel slash fortress like home being catered to as though he were a guest at a 5 star hotel ordering room service. And there was Morgan her expression one of insult at his hesitation to enjoy the chef's best dish.

He quickly swallowed down the laughter that threatened to make itself known to the redhead looking so expectantly at him. The giddiness was a sure sign of lack of regular sleep, stress and shock of recent events, still he was sure she'd think him mad he dare so much as snicker. After all once he started he wasn't sure he'd be able to stop himself.

Seriousness once more wasn't hard when he focused again on the glass in front of him. "Sorry, it just it's--"

The scent was heavenly. Perfect, so sharp and sweet-smelling, his insides clamoring for it.

He gave pause frowning.

"It's human isn't it?" he concluded.

Morgan nodded once.

"We bled her last night. A regular here took notice when you arrived last night insisted her gift find it's way to you when you hungered."

Morgan was smiling now, a beautifully wicked grin of fanged teeth. Something in the way the sentence rolled off her tongue seemed absolutely sinful in nature and she seemed to revel in it.

Thumbing the edge of the glass he sniffed.

Female, yes. The blood ripe with youth. He'd guess the patron no older than 20.

"I'm not hungry," he decided.

Rolling her eyes in exasperation at the hybrid she returned the tray to its place on the table side. "Pity, it is some of our finest. At least have the lamb then, I don't need a hungry lycan gorging himself on the flesh of my clients and colleagues when hunger drives the ravenous thing out of you."

She was staring at him again waiting for his assent, he gave a nod and the harshness in her eyes disappeared.

In such close proximity Michael became aware of two things. One being succubus's and regular vampires differed a bit physically and the proof was in Morgan's delicate-looking hand, lined with wicked things that a far away look would mistake for a woman's well manicured nails. No, these were at least a good inch long, slightly curved (for ripping into flesh, he'd guess) and very darkly pigmented to a translucent grey, perhaps from the many tough layers of keratin that made them effective weapons. She had the most startling green eyes, the dark pupils of them slitted like a felines. The third being the strangest, Morgan was the first vampire Michael had come across who didn't seem at all unnerved by his presence, not fearful nor disgusted by his lycan blood.

If anything, curiosity was the only emotion he was sure he could discern from the way she looked at him.

Placing a hand to her slender hip, she cocked her head, the movement of her red tresses rippling in the candlelight, a red flame that complimented her ivory-colored skin.

She had the rejected goblet of blood resting between her fingers, swirling it's contents languidly. "Odd. You are very young to survive an immortal's kiss."

The hybrid shrugged wondering if he should find insult in her assessment.

"I've seen younger vampires, I'm betting you've seen younger lycans too."

Morgan gave a dismissive wave of her hand at his comment and Michael would guess it was a gesture she practiced often, if her look of utter indifference was any indication.

"Pureborns, for the most part. We find humans near fragile as glass, turning them is often a failure and a terrible waste. Human males under 40 are our largest casualties."

"Building an army must be difficult."

The seductress made an odd noise, a guttural purr, white fangs bared and it took a moment for Michael to realize she had laughed aloud at his remark.

"I suppose I should not be surprised, dear Selene may be beautiful but her focus on warfare is clearly the only thing she seems to have taken an interest in schooling you in."

"We outside of the Old World and New World coven have little desire for bloodshed, lycan or otherwise. It's a good life for an immortal, I had hoped Selene would join me one day when she tired of war. Sadly that end does not seem to be in sight with Markus in such a rage." She sipped lightly before continuing, "He's always been passionate but now he's nothing but passion and terrible rage, a creature I no longer know. I do sincerely hope you and Selene have a good plan for yourselves."

"We do now."

Both Michael and Morgan whirled to find Selene standing there at the doorway, her expression grim, she turned her attention to Morgan. A gleam of silver whistled through the air and Morgan snapped up the lethal blade in a fisted hand.

A dagger that looked unlike any Michael had ever seen even Selene carrying.

"It's blood," Selene announced.

Their emerald-eyed host held the blade carefully under her nose. "Lycan."

"Just a mile down the road last night buried in a lycan."

The engravings of the gold hilt were fading but easy to make out. "16th century Sumatran. I only know one who uses this blade."

"Treyson must be leading the Death Dealers now which means we are outnumbered or at least outgunned, for now." Selene looked off thoughtfully. "Those lycans, the ones you mentioned last night, the ones that dragged off two humans?"

Morgan's cool expression did not waver however her eyes narrowed slightly in what might have been disapproval.

"Lycans rarely hunt further than 10 miles from their den. An easy track for two Death Dealers and a hybrid."

"Track?" Michael asked before Morgan could.

Michael's companion nodded. "I want to speak with them."

For a long moment Selene was faced with both her fellow immortals incredulous stares. This time it was Morgan who questioned Selene. "Why?"

"I thought it odd when you told us of these local lycans last night, odd to hear how easily you've managed peace with them that is. You've lived here for centuries and never once suffered an attack from them, I couldn't understand it until I realized something. They're newly turned."

The succubus for the first time that Selene could remember looked perplexed and it was not a look that suited the perfected poised immortal.

"Four males a single female, no guns, nor weapons but lycan form, coming for your humans how many times in the past few weeks?"

"At least six times I recall," Morgan answered still not following.

"Never targeting any of your men was no accident, they are selecting breeding partners and food. The lycan female I took the blade from was still freshly _marked_. Since when have lycans prayed on humans or made breeding partners right from under a vampire in the open?"

Catching on Morgan added, "Only the very foolish or very young."

"As you've said before Markus is on the hunt for us as well as resumed his hunt for lycans and much more aggressively if he's left Treyson in charge. They're young and seemingly inexperienced with our war we may be able to use that to our advantage."

"You seem to forget they drag off humans, time and time again but it is always the same pack members snooping around. They have to be using the humans for food. They could be primals, unable to take human form. What then do you hope to accomplish with lycans that lack moral objectivity?" She looked pointedly at Selene but did not give pause. "

Selene was quick to interject. "Primals? Come now Morgan, you're suggesting these creatures who intrude your grounds and have yet to attack your men are primals?"

"Alright primals or not it's likely they will not hesitate to reverting to a more bestial nature when intruders come strolling in their den." She smoothed the pockets of her duster with a lazy exhale. She opened her mouth to speak but thought better of it when noticing Selene's determination was still reading solid as a rock. She tried a much gentler tone. "I agreed to offer you assistance in your survival Selene, survival. You know I too have never been one for conventional methods but we are only two Selene."

"Three," corrected Selene.

Shooting Michael a glance Morgan confirmed, "three yes. But I will not ask my own guards to follow us into the very mouth of hell, waving a white flag. Things have not changed, with present revelations if anything we are plunged into even more chaos and further darkness."

"I know Morgan, but perhaps if we act now with these youths there is hope of peace, of no more darkness. Light."

"Indeed Selene, but what is light to those of us that live in darkness but certain death?"

Selene did not know quite what to make of her old comrade-in-arms's new attitude. She was wildfire, feral and unstoppable in everything Selene had ever witnessed her do and did not apologize for her actions, ever. Now she barely flickered, a campfire in the snow under Selene's request.

It wasn't fear that painted her face but weariness that Selene wasn't sure she understood but made note to investigate further when time was not so short.

And here she thought vampires never changed…

"Look, what have we to lose really? Even at worse perhaps there is something to learn from them about Markus or the covens attack on them last night. We share a common enemy now, if Markus is as mad as you say he will not stop his hunt at Michael and I, but the lycans too and you Morgan. I fear he will return here, proof or not of harboring us he will send the Death Dealers here once more, with none of their usual restraints."

Morgan did not meet her eyes, but it was clear Selene had made her point.

"How soon do we leave?"

It was well into the night when the three found themselves on the move, on foot. It was much too difficult to track lycan by car relying on scent alone Selene had explained. Michael had discovered himself to be highly effective in tracking and neither expressed surprise at this ability though Selene was secretly proud of his wordless lead. However when it started to rain in earnest and wet leather and vinyl became pungent Michael hadn't wavered, lighting cutting the sky, rain and wind near blinding them and the hybrid's steps were still sure.

They had carried on in silence only a few paces apart, it was safest that way so when Selene's female comrade sidled up particularly close to her Selene's gun was halfway out of it's holster before she realized it.

"Oh Selene…" Morgan tsked, "we are so very tense aren't we?"

Selene glared sharply at her before increasing her pace. They'd been walking through the side streets of town for an hour at least and she was already beginning to feel as though maybe it was this hunt was not such a good idea.

Too easy, it had all seemed too easy, what with Death Dealers probably still in the area, possibly lycans prowling around for food and Markus and here they were in plain sight tracking lycan and there was not so much as a stray cat out.

"I'd advise you never to do that again, I nearly blew your head off," Selene admonished.

"My apologizes," Morgan replied smoothly. She shook her head hoping to clear away the wet tangles clinging to her cheekbones. She motioned with a nod forward. "This rain, it will not be long before the hybrid losses the lycan pack's scent."

Blinking away rain from her eyes she noticed Michael had veered off the side street in an alley his focus still unbroken even as thunder rumbled and rain fell harder.

"No," Selene decided, "rain or flood he will find them."

"You've certainly a lot of faith in the hybrid. Despite his inexperience."

It was bait Selene advised herself not to take but could not seem to help. "Inexperienced or not he's more than proven himself courageous and loyal."

Morgan was quiet for a moment catching a sound echoing in the brick alleyway, Selene was quick to follow her example her right hand thumbing the cool comfort of her pistol.

Michael had paused mid stride as well, his eyes dark and fixed at the rain gutter. A harsh growl sounding from the hybrid.

A podgy sewer rat above them quickly made itself scarce.

Both vampires had come closer to flank him on either side. Suddenly remembering Selene's warning concerning subtlety and his hybrid nature he caught her eyes.

"Sorry," he murmured sheepishly.

"Quite alright," Morgan answered with an amused grin even as Selene fixed her with a look of disapproval.

_Leave it to Morgan to find amusement in the most serious of situations… _

They carried on but not much further finding the alleyway an open one leading them to an abandoned side building.

A dark hole where a door had definitely once been if crumbling brick round crooked hinges was any indication.

"We're here."

Selene slipped past him leading the way inside stealthy dodging chunks of brick and concrete. An odd and utterly unpleasant smell permeated through the air like rotting flesh, the source of it hidden somewhere amongst the blankets of dust and broken glass. Bare but for the pieces of crumbling foundation on the floor.

Michael had remained no further than ten feet behind her and Morgan had gone ahead to further investigate the building.

A silver hook swinging lightly in the drafty building providing some clue as to the location. More lined the ceiling, disappearing entirely next to a broken chalkboard.

Today's special. FARM RAISED VEAL

It confirmed what they had already guessed, these lycans living here were young ones, they had to be.

Only a young or very naïve lycan would choose to take refuge in an old butcher's shop it was comparable to a vampire taking shelter at a blood bank.

_Why not just paint a target on your belly?_

Time could not be spent on musing lycan behavior, the sound of a ringing pipe sounded close and Selene was already moving again, this time towards the sound only slowing slightly for Morgan to take her position of choice.

Morgan did not miss the unspoken request, they'd been here before. The centuries spent working side by side before Morgan's exile did nothing to nurture traditional ideas of closeness but immensely for martial law and survival, that was certain. They had lived, breathed and relished a hunt side by side many years ago together. Happiness in knowing nothing else, ignorance being bliss indeed.

They were oddities, even amongst vampires. China dolls with fanged teeth, swords always sharpened and guns always loaded.

Females were plentiful in the coven true, most preferred however the role of demure kittens that clung to the arms of aristocrats and bureaucrats of the coven. Those females that were Death Dealers were hand selected by the Elders for their efficiency in killing quickly and fearlessly.

It was Viktor's own opinion of the few female Death Dealers at his disposal that they were not only better killers than seasonal males but did so with both grace and blind devotion to the cause that only sunrise could halt till the next nightfall.

Selene wondered now how much of that remark was for her.

They had rounded the corner, with the two Death Dealers never breaking stride, the old building still again aside for the light crunch of boots over brick and broken glass.

Silent as a grave and just as still.

The whole hall littered with more brick, broken glass and plaster, cavernous and revealing a maze of doors in every direction. The largest pathway straight ahead being a makeshift one, pitch-black and wide as the mouth of hell in Michael's option.

There was an odd glow to Morgan's dark green eyes as they swiveled round their dank surroundings that made Selene's own blue scrutiny look commonplace.

It was too quiet for anyone's liking moreover just strange to be meet with no resistance halfway into a lycan den. Not a sound not a movement.

"It would seem they are shy," Morgan remarked lightly.

"Best we make ourselves known then before we are met under false assumptions, we-

A shrill cry broke Selene's briefing, blaring through the decrepit structure with an urgency of a den under attack.

And prepared to defend itself against interlopers.

The clamoring of clawed feet over stone and fallen glass seemed to multiple before it was deafening and traces of moonlight fell upon many snouts rigid with bared canines, and they were peering from every visible entry.

Onyx eyes fixed on the invaders, waiting…

For a sound.

For a movement.

And thankfully…for a command.

Such a formation was plenty indication to Selene the alpha has not made a clear command to attack, they seemed almost curious. That was no assurance they were out of danger only that they needed to make there intentions clear if they had any hope of no bloodshed.

"There," Morgan whispered with a brief nod towards the center hollow. "It seems we've found our young alpha male."

It was obvious, the largest male lycanthrope was moving, four long grey limbs all lowered to the floor and stalking towards them. His lean grey hide was riddled with scars, new, old and heeling tissue that decorated the large male like battle trophies. The worst seemed to be a cut that ran from eye to jawbone with the coarse guard hairs unwilling to grow there. It was likely made by a blade of silver as the right eye had been affected, completely gray and opaque staring blankly out, seeing nothing.

A solid dozen. These were not primals, for they lacked the thicker lycan pelt and brown-grey color. They came in deep grays mostly, but blacks too and some more silvery with thinner fur than first-generation lycans.

To Michael's surprise Selene had slowly unclipped her waist belt, allowing her weapons to fall uselessly to the floor even as the lycan padded closer. Michael was moving nearest to Selene but she was quick to stop him with a raised hand behind her. Morgan had wordlessly followed Selene's gesture of peace though from her frown the succubus had obviously not liked it.

"We mean not to intrude and certainly no harm." Selene paused carefully stealing glances at the other lycans.

They had remained farther back only staring the same as they had moments before. All were young lycans that either had not the age nor proper mentor to help teach willpower to control the change but it helped to know lycans in form under a calm mind state still understood human language.

"You're being hunted as are we and we wish to offer help in exchange for yours."

The lycan leader had stopped only feet from Selene, she dwarfing the huge male's 9 foot frame. The bi-eyed lycan's mouth had softened, flesh retracting to once more cover flesh ripping teeth. His huge head cocked in an almost friendly comical way as he stared at the small woman.

Michael breathed a sigh of relief inwardly, he had trusted Selene but he was the first to admit he did not believe it was going to be so easy but the leader had relaxed and so too had the other 12 members.

But underneath composure Michael was beginning to feel strange. It was more than unnerving the way the male stared, it was downright infuriating and the hybrid wanted blood for it. The eyes were all wrong, contradictory to the alpha body language.

It was wrong somehow and Michael was beginning to sense his new feelings were just. The colossal alpha had turned his attention to Michael and before anyone was the wiser, swatted him with the strength of a grizzly bear.

That was when the alpha howled and charged for Selene.

"Selene!" Morgan tried to warn.

She had been ready with a tuck and roll to her right where her weapons belt lay but she left them be instead facing the lycan with her own teeth gritted in challenge. Selene didn't even turn to see the sword whirling towards her, a gift of aid from Morgan.

_Thank you Morgan._

The 17th century Hungarian battle sword gleaned wickedly in her hand, it was Morgan's weapon of choice and expertise but Selene herself was fairly skilled with the weapon and confident she could hold her own.

As long as the rest of pack stayed put.

She swung the blade out catching the alpha in his chest and again in the beast's ribs, the alpha yelped before charging again snapping at the flying steel of Selene's weapon, unafraid in his rage even as blow after blow was dealt.

Morgan wasted no time evening the odds and catching the wolf in the flank that lay unguarded. The alpha was standing at full height now and drooling with anticipation, he threw his massive head back and bellowed.

The pack was joining the attack!

Flesh met biting steel of the succubus's weapon and rolling the blade round struck another bold lycan. "Remind me that I hate your plans!" Morgan called out.

Selene didn't answer her all too aware this was a possibility but she didn't worry, she was all too aware of something Morgan was not.

A yelp sounded, following a young lycan's body pitched clear through the shuffle and bouncing along to tear straight through a pile of broken brick. Through the cloud of grime and grit a newcoming lycan was emerging tearing through both lycan flesh and any support beams that were in the way, loping with open mouth of jagged teeth and black eyes fixed on the alpha for complete annilation.

This smaller individual lycan was black in color with a bluish tint extremely unique coloring Selene would know anywhere but this was not a form she had ever seen him take, a full lycan. She hadn't even known him capable. She doubted conscious effort had anything to do with it only rage and anger could be responsible for this transformation, Michael was running on pure lycan instinct.

It seemed the Corvinus strain was full of surprises. Much to their advantage.

A snarl and slap of impact had the alpha down and the irate newcomer pressing colossal grey blue talons in the chest of the leading male. The leading male simply lunged at the strange newcomer locking his heavy jaws on the vulnerable throat and began to shake Michael the challenger.

Michael broke free from the alpha only to be charged by an overzealous youth, the youngster promptly received a rip of talons and teeth to his face and shoulder. Beaten the youth promptly retreated the fight not even daring to look back at the dangerous lycan gripping bits of the foolish one's flesh between teeth.

Unable to savor the victory or spoils Michael returned to the alpha who had turned his attention to Selene and Morgan who were holding the beast at bay. Raging Michael struck, sinking lethal chops onto tough lycan hide and tearing with effort that made his jaws hurt. But the alpha was strong and plenty experienced coiling his powerful hind legs in a bucking rhythm and shaking his hide.

Michael was flung into brick but found his feet once more and charged in a thundering of paws, only 7 feet at full height, much smaller than alpha-male but clearly faster and stronger.

They collided again, an entanglement of talons and teeth, ripping each other apart until the hybrid-turned-lycan sank his canines in the soft underside of the alpha's throat and clamped hard dragging the conquered male along in salivating jaws.

The alpha had had enough and howled in defeat. Unlocking his hold, Michael had promptly let go of the heap of battered lupine but remained cloaking the lycan underneath him in the victor's shadow and the fallen lycan simply coiled and cowered, wise not to rise again. Afterall such was a great display of mercy on the hybrid's part to spare the defeated and rising would do nothing but force the winner's anger and retribution, it was ancient law amongst all lycans. A law every lycan instinctively understood and accepted.

The light of the moon clearly still affecting him as well as victory because upon surveying his surroundings Michael the lycan reared up onto his full height and howled in triumph and every visible lycan cowered in absolute deference. None would challenge.

Amongst these young immortals Michael had earned awe and respect in only moments.

He stood tall, not just one lycan over another, but a true alpha male staking claim. Food, territory and pack by lycan law were his. The moon was high and piercing through the chamber illuminating the hybrid. A vampire, a werewolf, a Corvinus.

A warlord, the same but different as his ancestor Alexander Corvinus before him.

Selene nearly allowed herself to feel pride.

Now perhaps things could progress more civilly.


End file.
